On April 19, 1529 In Germany at the Diet of Spires (Speyer), a document signed by Lutheran leaders in fourteen cities lodged a “protest” which demanded a freedom of conscience and the right of minorities. Henceforth, the German Lutheran Reformers were known as “Protestants”.

On April 19, 1775, British and American soldiers exchanged fire in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. On the night of April 18, the royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, commanded by King George III to suppress the rebellious Americans, had ordered 700 British soldiers, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith and Marine Major John Pitcairn, to seize the colonists’ military stores in Concord, some 20 miles west of Boston.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr19.html

April 19, 1783: Cessation of Hostilities, American Revolution

Civil War - Baltimore Mob

Less than a century later, when Civil War threatened to destroy the fledgling Republic of the United States of America, first blood was drawn on April 19, 1861, when a Baltimore mob attempted to stop Massachusetts troops heading for Washington, D.C. (Lincoln also ordered a blockade of Confederate ports on that same day.) http://www.civilwarhome.com/baltimoreriot.htm

April 19 was designated as Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts in 1894 to commemorate the opening battles of the Revolutionary War in Lexington and Concord in 1775, and the end of the war in 1783.

April 19, 1951 — Gen. Douglas MacArthur, dismissed by President Harry Truman as commander of the U.N. and Far East Commands, addresses a joint session of Congress April 19 quoting a line from a ballad: ”Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” The packed chambers and gallery full of diplomats, military leaders and citizens, give standing ovations to the general before and after his speech, and interrupt him several times with prolonged applause.

April 19, 1993: FBI Assault on the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco Texas. 81 people perished in that firestorm and gunfire.

Oklahoma City Bombing

April 19, 1995: One hundred sixty-eight people died in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

On April 19, 1996, the largest single-day total of tornadoes ever struck the state of Illinois. 36 tornadoes were documented, some as strong as F-3 on the Fujita tornado intensity scale. Tornadoes also were reported in parts of Missouri, Iowa, Indiana and Kentucky. http://redrock.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~jewett/Apr19/